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Dib Membrane
Dib is a young, eccentric boy who possesses a fascination with unexplained paranormal phenomenae, such as ghost hunting, Ufology, and cryptozoology, as well as with the supernatural and occult. He intercepted the words spoken at The Great Assigning on planet Conventia in the first episode with his laptop. Six months later, he notices a strange, green "foreign exchange student" enter his classroom. Dib tries his best to convince the world that it is in danger, but nobody believes him due to previous false claims of supernatural beings. Therefore, he must go against all odds to protect his oblivious home from Zim's schemes. Dib can be categorized as the "foil character" of ''Invader Zim''. He contrasts Zim, sharpening their respective characteristics. Dib and his sister Gaz are the only children attending Skool who realizes Zim is an alien, but only Dib seems affected by this and even becomes obsessed with the idea of exposing Zim. Fortunately for Zim, Dib is unpopular at Skool, and none of the other children will even listen to what he says, let alone believe what he is saying. Dib quickly becomes Zim's greatest enemy, and will stop at nothing to deter him from conquering the Earth. Appearance Dib is eleven Earth years old and resembles his father, Professor Membrane. Both have black, scythe-like hair; in Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom Dib's got more jagged and bigger with age. Many people claim that Dib's head is big, a running gag in the show; but it's not visibly bigger. The redesign process God Save the Dib, however, actually gave him a bigger head. His hair spike seems to be solid, and retains its shape even when getting wet. It took a water balloon of ridiculous proportions dropped from Earth's orbit and a second normal water balloon in order to get it to bend, as seen in The Wettening. Dib seems to be able to zip-line with his hair spike (using the spike as the runners), as seen in Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars. Likewise, it seems solid enough to punch through a brick wall like any part of his body if Dib is flung hard enough, as seen in Mortos der Soustealer. He also wears a trademark trenchcoat along with a blue shirt with an unsmiling grey face on it, pulled directly from Squee!, in which the main character, Todd, also known as Squee, wears the exact same shirt. Head Repeated cracks about the size of Dib's head have been made ever since a line of GIR's in Door to Door. Since this episode, jokes about Dib's head have been made in just about every episode. *In Battle of the Planets, Professor Membrane says that he has been monitoring Mars since he "was a baby with an ENORMOUS HEAD!" *In Future Dib, when the robot gnomes shove him in the cage, his head doesn't quite fit. *In Tak: The Hideous New Girl, when Dib makes a deal with Zim, it can be seen that his head is actually larger than Zim's. *Also in Tak: The Hideous New Girl, Zim says that "Despite his large head, the Dib-monkey is quite stupid". Dib replies with "MY HEAD'S NOT BIG!" *In Gaz, Taster of Pork, the Mysterious Mysteries anchor describes him as a boy with "the largest head", accompanied by a picture of Dib's head that is captioned with "Still growing?". Later, when Dib is going through a list of spells on his spelldrive, he says "Too bad, a smaller head would be cool". *In Mysterious Mysteries, one of Dib's classmates asks: "What's up with his head?", which is ironic, considering the bizarre knot that is located on that particular student's face. The anchor in "Gaz, Taster of Pork" also describes him as a boy with a "horribly large head", and Dib's introductory slide captions him as a "large headed believer". *In Door to Door, GIR asks: "Why is his head so big? WHY is his head so big?" *In Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars, Zim says ". . .And to make it even sweeter, I'll land the Massive right on top of your landing pad size monster of a head which is disturbingly large!". Dib runs away screaming while saying "Quit making fun of my head!" *In Walk for Your Lives, when Dib falls out of Zim's garbage chute and lands in the neighbor's lap, she says, "Hey, look at that! It's one of them big-head boys!" *In Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom, the Meekrob tell Dib that "no one else had a head large enough to accommodate so much power". *In Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom, numerous cracks are made about Dib's Head. The nightmare version of himself tells him his head is big, to which Dib replies "My head's not big! Why does everyone say that?". When a trick-or-treater shouts "Trick or treat!", Dib randomly shouts out, "My head's not big!". Later on in the episode, he appears to have begun to accept his head's size, thinking, "maybe my head IS big..." *In GIR Goes Crazy and Stuff, GIR's field of vision describes the Dib hologram as "Big Head Boy". *In Vindicated!, Zim is shown as thinking ". . . It's the size of a hippo, that head....". *In The Voting of the Doomed, Zim brings up his head as part of his campaign, saying "Just what does Willy plan on doing about the size of Dib's giant head?". *In The Sad, Sad Tale of Chickenfoot, a foreign ambassador asks the Professor "Who is the big-headed boy?". *In The Frycook What Came From All That Space, Tallest Purple asks "Who's that large-headed kid?" when Dib calls them. Personality Dib is incredibly determined and intelligent, and continues to hunt the paranormal despite being put down by his peers and family. It's unknown whether or not Dib hates all aliens, or just aliens that threaten Earth (like Zim and Tak). This interpretation usually varies from fan to fan, seeing as Dib would have teamed up with the aliens in the Resisty as well as the Meekrob in the series finale. He also shares his father's intelligence; proving to be very adept at creating things (like the water-balloon launcher in The Wettening) and quick to pick up on alien technology (like being able to hack Zim's computers and repair and reprogram Tak's ship). In The Nightmare Begins, he was shown to be extremely desperate as well as determined, resulting in what most fans would say was an obnoxious, un-funny personality. As the series progressed, however, he became funnier, much less desperate and therefore far more tolerable. He is also obsessed with his favorite Television show, Mysterious Mysteries. He even gets to make an appearance on the show in the episode 'Mysterious Mysteries'. He tries to prove that Zim is an alien on that episode, but the host concluded that he was crazy. He also concluded that GIR was crazy and that he felt bad for the green kid, Zim and stated that there was probably a good chance that he's crazy too. But not an alien. Role in Invader Zim Although he is antagonistic towards Zim (who is interpreted as an anti-hero), Dib can be considered a hero. This means that while he's technically a hero, he's considered antagonist in Zim's point of view. He's declared himself "Sole Defender of Earth", and is there to thwart Zim's plans, but the two have teamed up on more than one occasion when it benefits them both (such as in Bolognius Maximus). Reputation Dib is often called "crazy" or "insane", and is constantly being mocked for his theories. He even got put in a "Crazy Bucket", a possible alternative to a straitjacket. Overall, most of his classmates try to ignore him. Dib's also known by NASAplace and even the FBI for his paranormal-related antics. He's been on the front page of the newspaper twice (shown in Dark Harvest and Mortos der Soulstealer), so it's possible that a good deal of the city is aware of the trouble he frequently ends up in. Beliefs He believes Zim and GIR are the "bad guys", while he and Gaz are the "good guys" who are Earth's last hope against the coming alien invaders. He makes every effort to stop the two at every possible turn (although he tends to disregard GIR). This often leads to increased social difficulties at skool, as they are constantly making a scene in class or in the cafeteria. As Agent Mothman Agent Mothman is Dib's secret agent name for The Swollen Eyeball Network. It is unknown how long he has been a part of the network, but all the other operatives seem to know who he is and his reputation for being crazy. Dib seems on better terms, however, with Agent Darkbootie. Darkbootie has helped Dib at least once in Battle of the Planets, and gave him a chance to present the Network with all of his findings on Zim in Battle-Dib. Dib is also less ridiculed by Agent Tunaghost, who helped him in ''Gaz, Taster of Pork''. The rest of the agents either find him annoying, crazy, or a disgrace to the Network. Facts of Doom *He was supposedly born through a process similar to that of Irkens (likely a clone of Professor Membrane). *At some point in his life, he tried to raise the dead, as referenced by Professor Membrane in ''Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars''. *Despite his determination, he loses far more battles against Zim than he wins. Even when he wins, his plans don't work out the way he plans them. Before the 7th or so script, his profile on Nick.com said he was never able to win. *A misconception of the end of ''Future Dib'' is that he aged, but he'd been there for a month and the beard was most likely a momentary gag. *The creators had a liking to his hair and in ''Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom''; they wanted it to grow into a longer, more jagged shape. *Although perceived as insane, he may be, next to Gaz, the most sane character. *His Swollen Eyeball codename may derive from the story of Mothman, who would appear right before a disaster as a warning. * Whenever he talks to Tak's ship and Zim's Dib Robot (both with Dib's personality) he starts to notice why people see him as obnoxious. *Dib is Jhonen Vasquez's favorite character in the show. *In the commentary for Bad, Bad Rubber Piggy, Jhonen Vasquez jokingly stated that the original idea for the episode was for Zim to kill Dib permanently, and for Dib to be replaced with a new kid named Louie. However, Nickelodeon wouldn't permit it. *On Verizon cable, in the summary for Mysterious Mysteries, Dib's name is misspelled "Dub" rather than "Dib". Voice Actor Dib is portrayed by Andy Berman in the original American version and by Ayumi Kida in the Japanese dub of the show. See also *Complete Filmography *Dib and Zim's Relationship *Dib and GIR's Relationship *Dib and Gaz's Relationship *Dib and Tak's Relationship *Dib and Professor Membrane's Relationship *Ms. Bitters and Dib's Relationship External links * Interview with Jhonen Category:Main Characters Category:Males Category:Humans Category:Dib's Family